Washing Away Our Blindness

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

The story that we hear today from the Gospel of St. John is about a man who was blind since birth. On a symbolic level, however, this is a story about all of us and our progress through the spiritual life.

According to the doctrine of original sin, we were all born into a sinful world. Notice that at the very beginning of this story, the apostles ask Jesus who has sinned. They are still operating in the realm of the theology of reciprocity. According to this theology, God rewards those who are good and punishes those who are bad. Jesus corrects their way of thinking and says that God will make his works known through the man’s blindness.

The response of our Christian world to the dogma of original sin is to present newborn children for the Sacrament of Baptism. Because not all children are baptized, the church also welcomes adults into the Church baptism through Baptism each year at the Easter vigil. This story is used as one of the important narratives in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, commonly known as the RCIA.

How does Jesus heal the man born blind? Jesus spits upon the ground and uses his saliva to form a paste with the dirt which he then smears upon the man’s blind eyes. In his commentary on this Gospel story, St. Augustine explains that the spittal of the Divine Son of God is mixed with the dust of which all humankind was created to create a salve.  This salve, composed of spittle and dirt is the conjunction of the divine with the human. Jesus then sends the man to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam. John conveniently tells us the meaning of the name of this pool; “Siloam” means “Sent.” We cannot skip over this little detail because throughout the Gospels Jesus is referred to us as the one who has been sent. From this detail we come to realize that John is using this pool of water as an image for the Sacrament of Baptism. It is through this sacrament that the stain of original sin is washed away. The Catholic Church teaches that we are changed and given the eyes of faith through this sacrament by being immersed into the person, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Notice that Jesus sends the man away and then disappears from the story. The man’s neighbors are confused when he appears in their midst able to see. Some recognize the man, but others argue that it is not the same man but someone who looks like him. Then they asked the man himself if he had been born blind. He answers them, “I am.” Anyone who has spent time with the Gospel of St. John recognizes this answer which Jesus uses consistently throughout the Gospel. “I am” is the name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The man has been “Christified” or conformed to the image of Jesus who has proclaimed, “I AM the Light of the World.” This man is no longer the same person but has been immersed into the ministry of the incarnation of Jesus.

When the man identifies himself as the one who has been healed by Jesus, he finds himself opposed on all sides. His neighbors take him to the Pharisees who question him and his parents in an attempt to discredit Jesus. In a lengthy interrogation, they use every means at their disposal to discredit not only Jesus but the man himself. John tells us that at the end of this interrogation they threw him out.

At this point, Jesus reenters the story. He has heard of how the man has been interrogated, bullied, and expelled from the synagogue. When he meets the man again, Jesus asks if he believes in the Son of Man. In one of the most powerful statements of belief in the Gospel, St. John tells us that the man says, “I do believe, Lord,” after which he worships Jesus. His eyes have been opened, and he is no longer blind. He sees and believes.

At the very beginning of this homily, I stated that this was a story about our own spiritual journey. We were born into a sinful world. We were baptized and conformed to the image of Jesus Christ through that baptism. However, the sinful world does not recognize us. Our faith is questioned, battered, ignored, and ridiculed. We find that it is no longer easy to believe because the rest of the world is still blind and unable to see with the eyes of faith. This is precisely why the Church asks us to gather with other believers every Sunday to worship God and to hear the Gospel proclaimed. When we gather as a community to express and profess our faith, we are renewed and nourished by the Eucharist so that we can go out into the world and live out our faith with the reassurance that Jesus is still among us and that we can count on him to be with us as we struggle against a sinful world. We have been given sight by the One who is the Light of the World.